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How to do survival games right
So, while my throat feels like it's going to explode, I thought that I might start writing articles about things that have been on my mind for awhile. I need to do something to keep the boredom away. So, expect me to do that "learning from failures" of Heavy Rain, and considering how many people really like that game that should be... interesting. Why don't I like it? Well, it's a game that you can only like if you don't really think about it, which is kind of antithetical to how I enjoy things. The more thought, analysis, and deeper meaning I can get out of something, the more I can enjoy it. Keep in mind that this doesn't mean that I only like artsy pretentious things or things like BoJack Horseman which is indisputably deep. You can get a lot of analysis and thought out of Spongebob and Looney Tunes, with how they construct their humor, etc. I was also sparked to do a writing tips or two. "The Hero of their own Story" - how write a decent villain. But right now, I thought that I'd write down... a quest that I've been having. I've been trying to find a good survival game. Specifically one that takes place in an urban/post-apocalyptic environment (so not Don't Starve). Right now most people are probably asking - why the hell do people keep buying these things!? They're all crap. I think that it's because they're all crap that people keep buying these things. They're all consistently searching for the next big jump in the genre, and instead finding mediocre zombie first-person crafting game number 2344543532354. I've got a lot of history with this genre, because the idea appeals to me. The basic idea is to make the game The Sims where you character needs to eat and sleep, and basically make getting those the objectives, rather than the nuisance that stops you from playing The Sims. This should be easy, but... it's not. Even ignoring the hard-to-get "STOP RIPPING OFF DAY-Z OR UNTURNED AND DO YOUR OWN DAMN THING" and "JUST BECAUSE MINECRAFT STARTED OUT UNUSERFRIENDLY DOESN'T MEAN IT'S OKAY FOR YOU TO DO IT," survival games turn a lot of modern game design philosophy on their head. You know the type - the players should feel more powerful as they make progress. This one theory basically has ruined many survival games for me. You get to the point where you can't be killed unless you're willing to be killed, because you've got a safe house that cannot be infiltrated and more food/water than you'll ever need in your life. Just like in a survival horror game, if the player ever feels powerful, then what's special about the genre has melted away. For instance, let's talk about the aspect of "farming" in survival games. I get the logic - this allows the player to keep playing longer and get more resources and keep on going. However, I think that the inclusion of a farming option in most survival games is... wrong. At the very least, for it to work, it needs to be horribly inefficient to the point where you're better off scavenging. Let me explain this, this way. Imagine you're playing Tetris. You know how the game is played. The further along you go, the faster the blocks come down. Eventually it gets beyond your control and you top out, unless you're like one of those crazy good professional Tetris players that go for as long as they want, but only give up when their score maxes out. Imagine if there was a code you could input to slow down the Tetris blocks. It sounds good. However, what would happen is that your games would end up lasting too long and it would get boring before long as you could arbitrarily determine how long your game lasts. This removes the incentive of "trying to live longer than your last go" - which is imperative to both puzzle and survival games. Skills like farming - no matter how difficult and tedious you make them - is like including a code in Tetris where you can slow down the blocks. Honestly, it makes it debatable whether a survival game should have an ending at all, where the game arbitrarily stops. So, what... should the map arbitrarily run out of resources at some point. Yes. Ideally the map should be big enough that it takes immense skill to get everything - think Project Zomboid, but at some point - beyond the player's control - there should be no way to continue. Or at the very least, continue with severe consequences. Also, what you get should be randomized, for the same reason that Tetris pieces should be randomized. A Survival Game should not be afraid to be brutal and unforgiving. The absence of this is what killed Dead State for me (beyond a glitch, where if you sneak up to a zombie and "cripple" them, they can't attack, ever - which you can do completely unharmed). Dead State includes a quick save and quick load function. If you get bit by a zombie, just restart the combat. Imagine a game like Spelunky with a quick save/quick load function. I don't get why this is so hard to realize, because survival games are more-or-less roguelike games. They should be designed in roughly the same way. Unlike starting over in Dead State, I'm always willing to start up a new game of Spelunky. True, survival games can last hours and hours and even days, when roguelike games are over in just a few minutes. The best way to do something like this is Project Zomboid's save system, or Minecraft hardcore system - you can save whenever and wherever you want, but if you die, your save file is automatically deleted. One thing many of these games have difficulty with... is difficulty - making things get harder as they go on. After you've got your basic needs met, that's it. You're safe. You're collecting and boiling water, and catching food. The answer is to simply make more things that the player has to keep in mind with. Some of these games give you extra survivors that cost extra food, but I think you can go beyond that. A character with an addiction that will go crazy if they don't get their specific drug, for instance. A character with a disease that needs constant treatment. Crafting and skilling up tend to be too easy. In Project Zomboid, read a few book and spend a few planks and congratulations your burger flipper character can literally build a city of their very own. It should not be possible to max out all stats in one playthrough on a survival game. Remember, survival games - like puzzle and arcade games - should be designed with the player trying many, many times, trying to get further. For crafting, all you need is an arbitrary level that is easy to get and the components that can be very easy to get. Stick + string equals bow. What if... you repeatedly needed to press "A" to bend the stick down to be strung for the bow. And if you didn't get it, the stick would break? Pretty much all crafting is just standard "waiting around and hope the zombies don't see you." And that's another thing - the zombies, or "zombies not called zombies" need to be changed for something else. There are three very common categories for this genre - zombie apocalypse, nuclear post-apocalypse, and wilderness survival. I'd... really like to see other environments, you know? The only one not in these categories (I count Don't Starve ''as Wilderness Survival) is ''This War of Mine. There are many places that a character can survive that doesn't fall directly into one of these. I mean, you can have a survival game that takes place after your run-of-the-mill natural disaster, like a flood or series of earthquakes, or an EMP explosion. You can have a disease that doesn't turn characters into zombies, but has some other nasty effect that causes a societal breakdown. Fuck, put it in the past or future, or in a fantasy world. Or... you could just flat out have the player character be the last person on Earth, and make it some weird sandbox thing. Although, I don't know how well that will work, considering... One thing I think is important is NPC's - human (or similar) NPC's. Or at least, give the player a party. The more that I play these, the more that I think that this is a fundamental aspect of a survival game. Not only does it solve the problem of "how can we let the player do everything in the game, without letting their character do everything," but it also makes it easier to ramp up how much the party needs to survive, and may add more needs. It adds interesting dynamics, especially if these guys are made actual characters with their own policies and politics. The many characters was my favorite thing about Dead State, and the only reason I played it as long as I did. I'm just looking for a really good survival game, one that basically revolutionizes this failing genre, and with each one that I play, the less that I think I'm going to find this game. If you're wondering, I think that This War of Mine has come the closest to getting all of this right. I just think that the "ideal" survival game would have a larger scope, and maybe not be in the form of a 2D sidescroller. I dunno what it is, but I think isometric fits this genre the best. What's your favorite survival game? Do you even like the genre? Do you think my suggestions would make a survival game that you'd like? Category:Miscellaneous